Not a rag your Bannerman makes a habit of perusing, but the day is slow. Begs the question, are we really becoming a nation of tittle-tats? Is it the thing to do, tell tales? The fellow hosing off his concrete is certainly a naughty boy, at least on first appraisal. Perhaps though, he doesn’t bathe everyday, preferring to spend his shower allocation (Ye Gods, that we never get to that stage!) on maintaining a tidy courtyard. Who’s to know? Which is precisely the Bannerman’s point. Who is to know? Whose business is it, if not the man holding the hose?

Welfare cheats. Should we, as a society, be consciously taking note of people we suspect of being welfare cheats, dobbing them into Centrelink at the first opportunity? When do we do the dobbing? When we have cast-iron, categorical, produce-it-in-court proof, or do we simply tip off the welfare police and let them do their worst, trundling merrily on our way pleased that we’ve saved another few bucks for those who really need it? Trust your Bannerman. Experience says that Centrelink is akin to the blinkered cart-horse. It knows there’s a loud and frightening vehicle closeby, but unless it appears right in front, can’t see it and can’t turn it’s head to see due to the tight reins held by the driver. So you dob in a drone sucking off the welfare teat on disability support while doing mechanical car repairs on the sly up in the back shed. Who are you really hurting and who are you really benefiting?

Dob in a terrorist! Would you know what a terrorist looks like? Bannerman certainly doesn’t, that much is certain. Maybe if someone wearing a backpack on a commuter train suddenly screams out “Allahu akbar min kulli shay!” during the morning peak hour, Bannerman might twig that all wasn’t quite kosher but otherwise, keeps pretty much to himself, as 99.999633% recurring commuters do.

On the issue of dobbing, just because one can, is it to be deemed that most despicable of all jingoistic insults – UnAustralian? Bannerman seriously doubts the validity of such a nominative, given that there is no such animal as an UnAustralian. What is UnAustralian anyway?! Is it someone not born in this greatest of all non-plussed, capitalistic, consumer societies? Is it someone not yet naturalised? On that subject, perhaps someone not born on this soil, so to speak, can never be Australian, like that second class of citizens, the naturalised immigrant or visa-holding refugee. Oh, please, don’t accuse the Bannerman of discrimination! Look to Phillip Ruddock on that score.

And there, reader, we come to the crux of this dob-in-a-suspected-societal-suckhole issue. Dobbing, in the main, is not smiled upon by Australian society. At least it never used to be while Bannerman was growing up and being taught the wiles of survival on the streets of suburbia. One kept to one’s self. One minded one’s own business and kept one’s beak out of other people’s affairs. So what if that bloke down the way was getting DSP while hauling people’s engine blocks out of their cars on a block & tackle? Doesn’t the government have a brief as a part of their mandate to properly police such things without involving Hyperidian Bannermen? If Mr Tidy Courtyard wants to hose his concrete, is it any of Bannerman’s business? We all have water meters. Let council get off their collective arses and do a little monitoring of water usage instead of relying on Joe Public to do their job for them!